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BTW, hardly anyone "films" a scripted TV series these days. It is video recorded, either onto tape or other physical medium. An exception was the first season of Rookie Blue, which was shot on 35mm film, as seen in the Blu-ray extras.

A number of cables show shoot on film, because the producers or network feels that it helps distinguish the look from basic network TV. They think, by looking more like a feature, that it will appear to have more production value. The Walking Dead comes to mind, which shoots on 16mm. Mad Men still shoots on 35mm, I beleive, because Matthew Weiner wants the show to look like it was made in the 60s. For the same reason, they don't use Steadycams or Technocranes or camera moves that wouldn't have been possible in the 60s.

Would a show such as this ever intentionally film the episodes out of order, or is that pretty much all due to network interference?

Nine times out of ten, it's a network thing. But, sometimes shows do shoot out of the order they will air. Sometimes due to actor or director availability. Sometimes it is because the show needs to use a particular location that isn't available, or a set that has to be specially constructed and they need more time to build it. Sometimes it is because a certain script will have an unusual number of visual effects that will need extra time in post-production. Sometimes it is because a particular script is just overall not producible and needs a rewrite, but the next episode is ready to go so they shoot that first. By not producible, I mean either that the budget is too high, the script is too complicated to film in the required number of days, or would require too much location shooting, or the cast schedules conflict. So the writers need time to change the script and maybe write some of the conflicting actors out of that episode.

For example, in the case of another Fox show this year, Touch' , both things happened. A few episodes were filmed out of order due to production necessities (like Kiefer doing a press tour), and the network switched the order around because they thought the audience would respond better. The network thinking was that that the pilot had HUGE scope. Lots of location work, tons of visual effects, giant complicated storyline, etc. But in general, the show couldn't afford to do that on a weekly basis, so the subsequent scripts were pared down significantly. Fox decided to change the order the episodes to air the episodes with the most scope' first. That way, there wasn't such a huge difference between the pilot, and the later episodes which had smaller, less complicated storylines.

On a serialized show like Touch, of course, this means that there were lots of reediting, reshooting, moving scenes around between episodes at the last minute, and visual effects to fix continuity, so that the storyline still made sense. I don't think the end result hurt the show as much as Firefly, for example, but it still suffered, in my opinion.

Same will be in the fall. We won't watch a single new Fox show, period.

I don't see any reason to single out FOX for this treatment.

I've imposed a Big-4.5 wide ban on any new shows ... but that's mostly because I want to regain control of my life from the tyranny of my DVR (and I'm fed up with my local, so-called "HDTV" affiliates.)

LOL. Well, anything that looks interesting to us will get a season pass recording on the DVR but we won't watch until at least 4-5 weeks in to see if it even has a shot at making it. This saved me from getting into Terra Nova only to see it cancelled for example.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HDTVChallenged

I don't see any reason to single out FOX for this treatment.

I've imposed a Big-4.5 wide ban on any new shows ... but that's mostly because I want to regain control of my life from the tyranny of my DVR (and I'm fed up with my local, so-called "HDTV" affiliates.)

True, same here. Fox isn't the only offender although I hold a grudge (*cough*...Firefly...*cough*). As I noted above we usually record anything interesting and wait a few weeks. Grimm we waited about 3 weeks, saw it had pretty decent ratings (for NBC especially) and so dived in. Doesn't always work out (The Finder) but more often then not we are spared the cancellation rug being pulled out from under us.